


the maze of time

by nebulousviolet



Category: The Infernal Devices - Cassandra Clare, The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: F/M, Time Travel, bc i’m so kind and generous, but i thot i’d tag them anyway, tessa dealing w grief, the relationships arent really a key Part, wishes and wanting things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 17:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17585591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulousviolet/pseuds/nebulousviolet
Summary: In which Cecily Herondale travels a hundred and twenty-eight years into the future on the night of her engagement party.Or,“I want you to know that you have a brilliant life ahead of you, that the people in London love you endlessly, and that I love them, and that the Tessa of now misses you desperately, all of you, even Bridget and her singing.”





	the maze of time

**Author's Note:**

> yes i have deftly ignored canon by making james the eldest herondale/lightwood/whatever cousin and not anna, but to be fair, i’m fairly sure the whole premise of this fic deftly ignores canon, so uhhh

Cecily Herondale - soon to be Lightwood - adjusted the silver combs inlaid with sapphires that kept her sheet of black hair from falling around her face. She looked...different, she thought, different from the girl she had been in Wales and different from the girl in Yorkshire and even different from the girl in London. Her face seemed sharper, eyebrows arched higher, skin more luminous and clear.

She hated it. Cecily had always feared of not recognising the girl she saw in the mirror, and her reflection was a stranger, a distant cousin of who she was. One slender hand ripped the combs from her hair. The other reached out to touch the glass, reverent, as if Cecily could go five years back in time and be fifteen again, as if Cecily could return to who she used to be. Tessa, she thought distantly, would be so upset once she realised Cecily had ruined her hair. She’d spent so long twisting and plaiting it that she’d joked that her fingers had gone numb. Tessa would be upset, and so would Will, and they would want to know why-

And Cecily did not know why. There was no rhyme or reason to her madness. This was her engagement party, after all, and she was supposed to be _happy,_ happy that Charlotte was going to send her through a Portal to see her parents after, happy that everyone was together and that they were safe. Deep down, she _was_ happy, but she also wasn’t. Cecily looked at herself, and felt very far away.

The combs dropped to the floor, and Cecily grasped the gilded mirror with both hands, suddenly desperate. _I wish-_

And then she collapsed, a heap on the ground, and Cecily Herondale slipped from time.

 

*

 

She was in an Institute, she realised as she came to, her head aching and her face wet. Her nose was bleeding - or had been bleeding, anyway. Cecily thought that perhaps she was in the library, but she wasn’t sure. Everything seemed different, like the difference between earl grey and chamomile tea, and her head felt as if it had been gripped with great pressure. _Gabriel_ , she thought, _I must find Gabriel._

But as Cecily sat up, she soon noticed that this was _not_ the London Institute. The books were more numerous and messy, the wallpaper dull and faded, the carpets grey with age and use. She could hear someone pacing - a woman, from the sound of high-heeled boots clicking repeatedly on hardwood elsewhere in the room. Cecily couldn’t see her. She could only see shelves upon shelves of books, and more than ever did she not understand Will’s love for them. They seemed so lonely.

“Please tell me you’re going to redecorate, at least,” a feminine voice drawled, and Cecily’s heart skipped a beat then relaxed when she realised that the owner of the voice was not talking to her. It was American accented, much like Tessa’s, though stronger and harsher at the edges, like a frayed piece of silk. “Magnus said the decor’s been like this since he first came to New York, and rumour has it that that was _ages_ ago. You’re an artist, Clary, you’d do a better job than whoever last took it on.”

“I don’t know,” a second voice - someone softer, though Cecily wasn’t sure whether it was volume or tone that made it sound that way - replied. Clary, presumably; though what an odd name for a girl! “Considering how bad our collective luck is, Isabelle, we’re probably not going to have the time.”

“Excuses,” Isabelle sighed. “You could always ask whatsername to help you. Alec’s vampire friend, Lily. Magnus did a bunch of spells to let her walk in here, and Elliott’s always complaining about her rearranging the Dumort, which seems stupid, since it’s in literal ruins.”

A vampire walking in an Institute. Cecily had not been raised a Shadowhunter, but she had been part of this world since she was fifteen, and she knew that that couldn’t be right. Perhaps these Shadowhunters were corrupt? She shrank further into the shadows and the bookshelves at the thought, praying that her taffeta skirts would not rustle. It was at the right moment - one of the women came stalking past the gap in the shelves, and Cecily was so shocked that all she could do was stare.

She was very beautiful, some part of her thought, and it was true; her hair was long and straight and the precise colour of pitch, skin a creamy white that Cecily thought the society ladies of London would envy. Her profile was strong but not masculine, eyes almost glassy and endlessly dark, as dark as Cecily’s were blue. But it was not that that shocked Cecily, and it was not her height or her considerable bosom, either. Indeed, it was what she was wearing. A leather corset had been donned over a shoulder-baring bodice, and the skirt that flared out beneath it halted at her mid-thigh, showing stretches of scarred, pale skin. Cecily’s first thought was that she was in a state of undress, but that could not be true, for she was wearing the high-heeled boots that must’ve been the source of the earlier clicking. Cecily felt faint. _Where am I?_ she thought, and then something more terrible occurred to her. _When am I?_

“Lily has things to do too, I’m sure,” Clary said after a pause, but the sound did not seem any closer, so Cecily assumed that the woman she had seen was Isabelle. Then Clary, too, passed Cecily - she was a great dealer shorter than Isabelle, with vibrant red hair gathered in a knot at the back of her head, a paint splattered blouse tucked in haphazardly into a pair of tight denim trousers that appeared only to make her seem smaller. She reminded Cecily suddenly of Charlotte, with her large presence at contrast with her tiny size. “Besides, Alec is pretty much the only Shadowhunter she _likes,_ anyway. She only really puts up with the rest of us for official business.”

“This should be official business,” Isabelle murmured darkly, barely audible. Cecily swallowed. She had to get up. She couldn’t just stay here, in the dark dank of an Institute library, and hide here forever.

Cecily stood, and both Isabelle and Clary whirled around at the noise, reaching for weapons, and Cecily held her hands up. “I am unarmed,” she said, and cast her eyes down so that she didn’t have to see the obscene curve of Isabelle’s bare legs, or Clary’s tightly-clad hips. “My name is Cecily Herondale. I come from the-“

“Oh no,” Isabelle let out a low moan, and Cecily glanced up. Whilst Clary was dumbfounded (her freckles were just like Henry’s, Cecily noticed), Isabelle had a look of recognition in her black, black eyes, and it was plain from her expression that she wasn’t happy about it. “Oh _no._ I know who you are.”

“You do?” Cecily and Clary demanded at the same time, and Cecily averted her eyes once more. Isabelle nodded miserably.

“When I was hunting down Lightwood portraits,” she groaned. This clearly meant as little to Clary as it did to Cecily, since the redhead just blinked. She had pretty, almost doll-like eyes, jewel green and framed with a flutter of lashes. “Remember? When Magnus and Alec broke up because of that _bitch_ Camille, and I was brigading him? There were tons in the attic. Not gonna lie, some of us let the Lightwood name down, but I remembered her, because she looked so much like Alec.”

Clary leaned forward to examine Cecily. “I don’t see it,” she declared, almost cheerfully. “What do we do, then? She looks like she’s walked off the set of one of those weird historical dramas Magnus and Tessa are always watching.”

Cecily, annoyed at being addressed in the third person, immediately perked up at the mention of a familiar name. “Tessa?” she said hopefully. “Tessa is alive?”

“Yes,” Isabelle said cautiously, though her eyes lingered on Clary as if wondering whether or not she should’ve confirmed it. “And I can’t believe I’m saying this, possibly because it’s the first time I’ve ever done it, but I think maybe we should go to the Clave.”

“Absolutely not,” Clary shook her head. “You saw how they handled the Sebastian debacle, by which I mean they didn’t handle it at _all_.”

Isabelle crossed her arms and sighed, an unhappy sound. “Well, she needs to get changed. She can’t go wandering around the Institute looking like a Pride and Prejudice reject, she’ll frighten Simon. He’s been so traumatised ever since he remembered the whole Lord Montgomery business that anything pre-1920 makes him come out in a rash.”

“Yes,” Clary winced. “I’m aware.”

She extended her hand to Cecily, who stared at it like it was an alien, foreign thing. Clary’s hands were strange, marked with paint and charcoal, fingernails bitten down to the quick. Cecily glanced at her face, and Clary visibly softened.

“We’ll get you back to wherever you came from,” Clary said gently. “I promise.”

Cecily took it.

 

*

 

It was Clary’s wardrobe they were raiding, despite Isabelle’s numerous protests - _I have the perfect white dress for her! -_ and so Cecily had been clad in the most feminine thing Clary owned, a cream silk blouse and a floaty pair of palazzo trousers. They were beautiful clothes, Cecily thought, and she’d wondered why Clary had them hidden in the back of her armoire. But Clary had barely touched them, only dumped them in front of Cecily (in as kind a manner as possible) and left her alone to change.

Cecily thought that she’d never be able to go back to corsets and crinolines now that she was dressed in a modern manner. It was odd, not to feel the weight of her ribs being crushed, and being able to see the skin of her legs and ankles. Neither Clary nor Isabelle were her size, unfortunately, so Cecily had opted to go barefoot instead of wearing her odd little boots. The sight of her favourite grey-and-blue silk dress on Clary’s bedroom floor made Cecily’s stomach churn slightly, but it would be easily smoothed and brushed, and everything would be right as rain again.

“Are you ready?” Clary asked, and Cecily drew herself together, squared her shoulder in her best impression of Will, and opened the door. Still, Clary was as kind as ever, and it was that kindness that hurt more than anything.

 

She desperately wanted to go home.

 

“How am I going to get back?” Cecily whispered as Clary led her through a maze of corridors not too dissimilar to the ones in London. To her horror, she realised she was crying. Everyone would be so worried, she realised, Will and Gabriel and Charlotte, and this was all her fault, even if it wasn’t, not really.

“Isabelle called Magnus,” Clary said. Her stride was quick, purposeful, and Cecily had to hurry to chase after her. There was a black rune curling at Clary’s neck, but Cecily didn’t quite recognise it. “He says he knows how. You still didn’t tell us how you got here, though.”

“There was a mirror,” Cecily began, and then paused. She did not want to tell Clary about ripping the combs from her hair, she realised. “And I touched it, and woke up here,” she finished lamely. Come to think of it, she had not seen that mirror before - it had had a shinier lustre, its glass cleaner. By the Angel, why had she not noticed? Will was always needling her for not being as observant as she should be.

She hated that he was right.

“Huh,” Clary said, though she did not elaborate. “Well, Magnus should be here in half an hour, providing Maia shows up to babysit, and then we can talk.”

“Babysit?” Cecily asked in astonishment. Clary shot her an amused glance.

“Yeah,” she confirmed, and did not say any more. Cecily thought of the beauteous Isabelle, of portraits found in an attic, of heavy silver combs and an Institute just like this one but changed. There was an expression that Jem had said over and over, an expression that Will had picked up himself, though he seldom said it aloud - _time is a wheel._ Cecily had always found it stupid. Now she looked at Clary, and was inclined to believe it.

“Oh,” Clary said suddenly, and pushed a door open. There sat Magnus, his long legs dangling off a velvet chaise, waistcoat embroidered with glittering blue thread. Cecily’s eyes strained just looking at him. “I thought you were waiting for Maia.”

“I’ve stopped relying on Maia for babysitting duty ever since I caught her and Lily Chen in quite the compromising position,” Magnus declared, which seemed to be news to Clary. Cecily couldn’t help but notice that Magnus was studiously avoiding looking at her. “Isabelle was happy to take up the mantle.”

“And Alec?”

“He’s running an errand for me,” Magnus said vaguely, and stretched. Finally, he looked at Cecily. “I don’t remember that being the fashion. Poor Gideon’s going to have a heart attack when he sees you.”

“Gabriel,” she corrected on autopilot, and Magnus shrugged languidly.

“I suppose I shouldn’t mock you, now that we have a love for a Lightwood in common,” he said. Cecily wondered if he was being deliberately cryptic.

She turned to Clary, but she had already left, silent, selfless. Cecily suddenly missed the comfort of a near-stranger.

“Who’s Alec?” Cecily said instead of anything else. “Everyone says these names like I should know them. That girl - Clary - certainly expected me to know that you have a child. Unless she was joking?”

“Alec is the man that I love,” Magnus answered simply. Cecily swallowed; there was agony, under Magnus’s façade. “He is mortal. A Shadowhunter, like you. A Lightwood, as you will soon become - if you are not one already. I know, with utter certainty, that when he dies, I will be wrecked. But it’ll be worth it, I think, to have loved Alec for fifty or sixty or however many years. And I also know that after Alec is gone, if I could see a piece of him again - if I could see Isabelle, his sister - and not break the Law or my own morals for it, I would do it. And that is why, before I send you back, I have one more thing to show you, Cecily.”

There was a faint knock at the door.

“Tessa,” Cecily whispered, and then Tessa was hugging her, her grey eyes streaming with tears. She was Tessa, and she was not Tessa - her hair and eyes and face was the same, but she seemed sadder, older, sanded and worn down at the edges with time. Tessa and Cecily were friends, but never close as sisters - that honour belonged to Tessa and Sophie. But Tessa was clinging to her like a child, and damn it all, Cecily was crying, too.

“Cecily,” Tessa said, and she drew back. “I know you don’t know what year it is here. It was wise of them not to tell you. But it’s been many, many years since I saw you, since I saw those Herondale eyes, and…” she swallowed. “It’s selfish,” Tessa decided, as she looked at Cecily with a funny look on her serious features. “It’s selfish for me to want to see those eyes one last time, to force you to endure a world in which you will not and cannot participate in for any longer than necessary. But Magnus told me you were here, and I never did get to say goodbye to you in life, Cecily. I was a great coward, and I ran after Will died. But I want you to know that you have a brilliant life ahead of you, that the people in London love you endlessly, and that I love them, and that the Tessa of _now_ misses you desperately, all of you, even Bridget and her singing. And I want you to know - just for a moment, even though Magnus will wipe your memory of this before he sends you back - I want you to know that although this world and the one you are used to seem so different, there is real goodness in both of them. I would give everything I have to spend one last day in the London Institute with you all, Cecily. And I can’t. And I don’t know how you got here, but I am selfishly glad that you _are_ here, because then at least I have seen one of you.”

Cecily stared at her sister-in-law as realisation dawned. “Will is dead,” she said. “And-and so am I?”

“Yes,” Tessa nodded, and bit her lip. It was an unconscious habit, one that Cecily did not recognise. “I’ve always wondered what I would say, if I ever saw one of you again. In my memory, the past and the present flow together. When I think of you, Cecy, I think of you aged fifteen and thirty and fifty seven all together, and it is the same for everyone else. And so...I don’t know. It is too much, and not enough.”

“And you?” Cecily asked, and Tessa’s smile was heartbreaking.

“I am twenty-three,” she said. “I am twenty three, forever. But that’s nobody’s fault, and not your burden to bear.”

Tessa’s chest heaved, and she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “Thank you,” she whispered to Magnus, and then, “Goodbye, Cecily. One does not question miracles, I have learned, and though I have only been here a moment, my heart is lighter. You know, your eyes are the precise colour of forget-me-nots. I had almost forgotten.”

She left then, and it was just Cecily and Magnus again, staring at each other, blue to gold-green.

“You’re going to wipe my memories?” Cecily said, and was surprised to hear how calm she sounded. Magnus nodded. “Why?”

“You being here has already happened, so to speak,” Magnus explained. “Time is a circle, of which there is no beginning or end. In order for you to come here, in order for Alec and Isabelle to even exist, it has already happened, and will happen a hundred times over. The problem is sending you back. What you know of the present cannot be sent back to the 1800s. Imagine if you told _that_ Tessa of the Tessa you had seen today, or Will, or, God forbid, the Lightwood boy you’re in love with. In order for time to march on as it is supposed to, you cannot remember. Yet, as cruel as it sounds, what just happened was never for you to recall, anyway. It was for Tessa. Her fleeing the country after Will’s death is her greatest regret, and I know that because she has told me so year after year. Now she has closure.”

“Now I must leave,” Cecily said, and she understood, almost. There was an aching in her heart, a sadness that she could not describe.

She had felt a similar ache when she had left Wales, when she had realised that she was better suited to a life of Shadowhunting than a life of domesticity. An ache that wormed its way under her ribs and through her chest, like a bruise, or a burn.

“Now that you know the truth, you can never go back,” Magnus agreed, and reached for her hand and squeezed it. “It will not hurt. The spell nor the memory removal. You will pop right back to the night of your engagement party with those ridiculous combs in your hair, and life will march on, and your soul can rest in the knowledge that Cecily Herondale has not been forgotten.”

“How did you know that it was my engagement party?” Cecily asked.

“Isabelle sent me a picture of your dress. I was there. Or rather, I _will_ be there.”

Cecily got the sense that he was lying, but she did not push it. She sat obediently down in front of him, and allowed darkness to envelop her.

 

*

 

“Magnus Bane,” Cecily heard Will say in surprise, and Cecily drifted from Gabriel’s side to eavesdrop. “Had I known you were coming-“

“Flying visit,” Magnus assured, and glanced over to Cecily. “Hello, Miss Herondale. Are you well-recovered from your fainting spell?”

Cecily had fainted in the middle of her bedroom, two silver combs grasped in her hand. Strange; she had no recollection of ever ripping the combs out, but it was alright. Tessa had rearranged them and squeezed her hand, and Gabriel had called her beautiful. Even if Cecily was rather pale. Even if Cecily couldn’t stop imagining herself with black eyes instead blue.

“Quite,” Cecily said, and Magnus inclined his head at her. Something about him seemed pleased, she thought. Perhaps a tad supercilious. She turned to her brother. “Oughtn’t you be tending to your pregnant wife?”

“Oh!” Will exclaimed, and dashed off to relieve Tessa of...yes, that was indeed a plain glass of juice, Cecily decided. She narrowed her eyes at Magnus.

“You’re keeping secrets,” she declared. “You said you were not coming, due to - and I quote - the great risk of Bridget driving you both deaf and blind with one shrill note.”

“I changed my mind,” Magnus examined his pocket watch. ”I decided that I must take low chances, such is the briskness of life. And of course, it is my honour to see you and your brother again.”

“You do not deny, then, that you are hiding something,” Cecily said, and Magnus did not reply. Her brain felt bothersomely foggy, as if she were struggling to recall something that did not exist. “Something happened to me. Something that I do not recall, and that nobody else does, but you do.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Miss Herondale,” Magnus said lightly. “That cannot be the case. I was still in the New World when your ill health occurred.”

At last, he dropped her a glittery wink - strange, as she had not noticed glitter on him before - and moved to mingle amongst the crowd. “Are you alright, darling?” Gabriel asked, and Cecily stared after Magnus. She could hear words that sounded like they were coming from a thousand miles away, written in water - _and life will march on, and your soul can rest in the knowledge that Cecily Herondale has not been forgotten._

“Yes,” Cecily decided. “Yes, I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> please comment if u enjoyed!


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